BTW it's only a simplistic two-line bash command to create a user, set password Besides, it is bad practice to use "one-letter login" OTOH _ If you are the only user - why use any password if you find it "inconvenient"GYI log-ins - that is a subjective opinion onlyThe downside - you miss login processes & notifications-all for the sake of "convenience"NO time is saved

Hi RMR!

Thanks for your several thoughtful replies. Yes, this is a great forum!

In my opinion, not a fact, but, in accordance with my PRACTICE, so, maybe just a titch more than a mere opinion, the installer MUST permit a user to create a single letter login name.

The consequence of not permitting the user to operate his/her computer as he/she wishes, is to ignore the distro.

Ditto for passwords. If the distribution requires more than a single character password, in order to permit the installation to continue, the cdrom goes onto the coaster pile.

The best installer, I have seen, offers the user a chance to establish automatic login DURING installation. That is the proper approach, in my opinion.

Of course, if one is thinking, not as a user, but as a museum caretaker, determined at all costs to PRESERVE the wonderful UNIX environment, complete with such nonsense as insisting on TWO clicks of the mouse, because, in the mid 70's when UNIX became popular, we only had a single button on the mouse, ergo, (in those bad old days,) we were obliged to perform two clicks in rapid succession, to differentiate one user action from another. I am always impressed by the large quantity of faithful to the bitter end UNIX loyalists who INSIST, on their mothers' grave, that one MUST have n characters for this or that function, else the world will stop turning.

I have no patience for such drivel. Either the installer supports the user requirements, rather than the museum caretaker's list of faithful duties to execute in accordance with the law according to Bell Labs, else, I find a different distro!

LOL Such passion - It would be a shame to dismiss the polished VL offerings(Ya come long way sirs)~ Because they adhere (at install?) to proven security concernsIndeed, it is often seen, requests for more such features - Firewalls, etc.

Please be mindful the installer events are but one topic such as this;Once installed - Any may change defaults as they see fit

Off-topic:Wink ~ IIRC in the latter 70's, there was no X-windowing for *proprietary* Unix @ Bell labs - it seems plausible... the only mice seen were running around floors

Perhaps you may have stringent variants such as SEL in mind, vs Ubuntu/PCLinux or offshoots?I believe the working definition here is *choice*

Museum caretaker ? - Those that off-handidly dismiss the lessons of past history_

Logged

"Problems are seldom resolved by thinking in the same manner they were created"

I'll try to explain it in more detail:Graphical installer has an option to mount different partitions to different places(such as /, /home, /tmp, /mnt/sda1, etc.) One of the options is Other, which is supposed to let me enter the path to where I wish to mount a partition. When I click on Other, installer crashes.Hope that makes sense now.

Graphical installer has an option to mount different partitions to different places(such as /, /home, /tmp, /mnt/sda1, etc.) One of the options is Other, which is supposed to let me enter the path to where I wish to mount a partition. When I click on Other, installer crashes.Hope that makes sense now.

I think you misunderstood that option. What you are supposed to do is select the partition in which you want to install VL7 and mount / on it. That's it. If you want /home, for example, on a separate partition, you select it (such as /dev/sda6) and mount /home on it. I really don't think you want Other at all. You're selecting the partition in which you want to install VL and that partition is / . The installer is crashing because you haven't selected a partition for / . I hope that is clear. If not, we'll try to explain it again.--GrannyGeek

That "other" bit threw me - (only time the term *other* has been discussed is when configuring lilo)Is it really worded as such in installer ?

However, the installer should just dump user back to step ~ "create file systems/partitions" and pop-up info that no rootfs has been selected

Budulay - "install to partition /mnt/sda1" > while technically it is possible, it does not make sense/mnt is a sub-directory off the root (/) file system/mnt/sda1 would be the sub-directory of /mnt

An installation will use any defined (device) path ~ I.E . sda1/2/etc etc, Sdb1/2/etc etc to create a root-fs (/) (mandatory) and/or a sub-directory of / (rootfs) in own partition

WITHOUT numbered (partitioned) sections, the whole device is used

That in itself may be desired BUT:If installer does not ask first -(BAD SCRIPT) it may re-format entire device

Best practice- prepare own partitions and format for desired F/system before installationON AN UNMOUNTED DRIVE - WRITE data to disc by re-boot

While many like to keep /home on a different partition (or even different device)~ to save content for re-use when another O/system or upgrade is done:

When space concerns are addressed, the fastest growing sub-directory is /tmpSeldom considered is which file system to use: (example, ext2/3/4 use limited number of inodes)Space wise, /tmp may run out of room to store the temporary files created by an App install The space may seem adequate, (when /tmp is on same partition as / And still run out of inodes :

« Last Edit: February 22, 2011, 11:40:24 pm by rm-r »

Logged

"Problems are seldom resolved by thinking in the same manner they were created"

I know I am quite bad at explaining things, but today is clearly not my day

Let me take another shot at this:I selected /dev/sda11 to be mounted as /, /dev/sda7 as /home, /dev/sda6 as /tmp and /dev/sda10 as /mnt/sda10. What I wanted was to mount /dev/sda1 as something other than /mnt/sda1(like /mnt/old or something like that).Here's how the installer crashes:I click on the partition(sda1), I get a menu asking if I want to format it(I say leave unformatted) and also asking where I want to mount this partitions. That's where I get choices such as /, /home, /tmp, /opt, /mnt/sda1 and Other. In one of the alphas, when I click on Other, a text field appeared, letting me type where I want that partition to be mounted. Now if I click on Other, installer crashes.

@GrannyGeekWell, this is exactly what I was trying to do - mount partitions to different places, such as /, /home, etc. One of those places just happened to have a non-default name.

Just tried the latest VL7.0-STD-BETA-1.2.iso from VL mirror , installation went smoothly on my sharp mebuis old laptop, once rebooting, problem arose:Booting process 's hang at --------------------------------------------------------------------------------[3.173442][<c1003906>] kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10-------------------------------------------------------------------------------then i had to press reset key again and again, never succeded in booting to vl7std beta1.2

what happened?now no more vl6sohofinal on my laptop,sad can't use vector for my work again,any quick remedy COMMAND/ CHEATING CODE 4 booting?

Frankly, I don't understand a word of what you're saying.<g> I fear it will confuse non-technical users and will convince people new to Linux that it's all much too geeky for them and you need to use that command line that they dread.

I don't think ANYONE will go wrong using GUI Gparted during the partitioning step as long as they understand what a partition is and how you pick the partition on which you want to install and the consequences of picking the wrong one. I must say it's not that clear in Gparted until you catch on. It's *much* worse in cfdisk, which I happen to find quite easy, but I've been dealing with partitions in DOS, Windows, and Linux longer than some forum members have been alive.<g>

Have you actually installed VL7 beta1? Some of what you post sounds like you haven't and perhaps have never seen all the installation steps.--GrannyGeek

Well, this is exactly what I was trying to do - mount partitions to different places, such as /, /home, etc. One of those places just happened to have a non-default name.

I'm afraid I'm quite confused about what you were doing and when you were doing it. I assume you're talking about the partitioning stage very early in the installation process. Yes? I'm writing from memory but I think it'll be close enough that you can figure out whatever I've missed.

I think the best way to proceed is to go through what I do when I install a new VL. First--does the drive on which you're going to install VL already have partitions? Or is it bare and in need of a partition being created? Either way, in Gparted (which will show all your hard drives) create or find the partition on which you want to install VectorLinux.

What I do for safety's sake is make a list of all my partitions and what's on them using the version of VectorLinux that is my main current operating system. For example, here was my list before I installed VL7 b1:/dev/sda5 /mnt/win-i/dev/sda6 /mnt/sohodeluxe/dev/sda7 /mnt/alpha4.22/dev/sda8 /mnt/vl6/dev/sda9 swap/dev/sda10 /mnt/vl7a4/dev/sda11 /mnt/sohofinal

The mount directories I use for the partitions as listed in /etc/fstab have nothing much to do with GParted but are on my list so I know what I'm dealing with. My goal is to MAKE SURE I get VL installed where I want it without overwriting something I want to keep. I then look carefully over my partitions and decide where I want to install VectorLinux, beta1 in this case. I decided to install it in /mnt/sda10, getting rid of VL7 alpha 4. I repeat my thought process to make sure I'm going to put it where I want it. Then I circle /dev/sda10 on my list and write "install VL7b1 here."

Next, in GParted I look at the list of partitions on the drive and select /dev/sda10. Then I click on the mount point dropdown. I select / , the root file system, on which all the VL directories and subdirectories will be installed. On this multiVL system, I do not use a separate home directory. I'll explain why below. You will also need to select the file system you want to use for / . I usually pick ext3. There is also an option not to format, but you DON'T want that for the root filesystem.

If you do want a separate home directory for VL7, you then need to select one of the other existing partitions for VL7's /home directory. You select that partition and assign /home to the mount dropdown. Note that if you already have a /home partition that you want to use for VL7 and you don't want to lose data you have in that /home partition, you will not want it formatted, so don't select any file system or everything on that /home partition will disappear. If you want to keep what's on an existing /home by not formatting, VL7 will not wipe out the data but will overwrite some files.

Why would you want a separate partition for /tmp or /opt or anything else? Those directories will be created when VL is installed. With any directories as well as with /home, the advantage of preserving what is in them does not depend on having them in a separate partition. Ideally, you have an external hard drive (which I consider an absolute necessity today). Format the whole external drive with a Linux file system and a simple copy from your computer to the external drive will preserve your ownership and permissions. Or create a partition on the external drive just for Linux and format it with a Linux system. I have ext2 on my external drives. Copy whatever you want to preserve in a /home partition to the external drive before you do the installation of VL7. On second thought, a simple copy may mess up your ownership and permissions if you don't tell it to do it the right way, which I don't know how to do. So I use Midnight Commander (a fabulous program) as root (so I can write it anywhere) and I tell MC to Preserve Attributes. This has always worked splendidly for me. If you don't have a Linux-formatted file system to copy the directories or files to, you can tar the whole directory first and then copy the tarred file to FAT32 or NTFS or whatever file system is on the device. If you're using the external drive with Windows, too, remember that Windows doesn't see Linux-formatted drives or partitions. Partitioning the external device so you have a partition for Linux takes care of that. You will not be able to write to that partition with Windows.

The reason I do not use a separate /home partition on my multi-Linux systems is that the new installation will overwrite some of the files with its new versions of these files if I use the same user name and user home directory. That may mean the previous versions of Linux won't work right because the new versions of the files in /home are not compatible. You could get around this by creating a unique user with a unique home directory, but what's the point? I'd rather just copy back the data and settings I want from the external drive. Then I don't have to deal with ownership and permissions. I do have a separate /home directory on my laptop, which is VL6 Light only. When I install a new version of VL Light, I will reuse /home and not format it.

I prefer to avoid excess partitioning in all cases because it's very difficult to decide on the right size for the partitions. Almost invariably, as you use the installation, you find you didn't leave quite enough room in /home or /opt or /usr or whatever you put in a separate partition. Or you made the partition way too big and thus are wasting drive space. Since I see few, if any, advantages for separate partitions for all this stuff for a home or very small business user, I just put everything on / . Then the directories can expand as needed, using tbe full size of the / partition.

Don't confuse the "mount point" GParted is talking about with mounting partitions once VL is installed. You can do that with VASM, which also makes entries in /etc/fstab and creates directories in /mnt or wherever you want them. You can decide which partitions you want to be mounted automatically at startup while you're working with the mounter in VASM. If you don't want one mounted automatically, simply add ,noauto in the line that sets up the drive options in VASM after you decide where you want the drive mounted. Do not put a space between it and whatever comes before it. Here's what one line in my /etc/fstab looks like:/dev/sdb6 /mnt/win-e ntfs-3g defaults,allow_other,umask=0,users,nls=utf8,noexec,noauto 0 0

I hope I didn't simply repeat stuff you already know all about. Keep us posted.--GrannyGeek

If you google on kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10you'll see a number of links that discuss the same problem. No solutions in my very limited reading, though.

I suggest trying a VectorLinux Live CD and seeing if you get the same problem. Also try a Live CD from another distro. This is just to see if the same hang happens with other versions or distros. --GrannyGeek